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Wendy Laurel is a film photographer who shoots weddings, families, and lifestyle work on Maui, Hawaii. She was selected as a PDN winner in the annual Top Knots wedding photography competition for 2015 and her work has appeared in many wedding publications and blogs, such as Pacific Weddings, Style Me Pretty, Snippet and Ink, 100 Layer Cake, Green Wedding Shoes, and many more. She lives on Maui with her husband and four children.

Why I shoot film at weddings here in Hawaii is something I get asked all the time. All. The. Time. The simple answer is easy — I shoot film at weddings because I love how it looks. I shoot Kodak Professional film and I find that it gives me the colors of Hawaii that I see with my eye here and does it in a super pretty way.

I am not a super technical person. They way I can explain what I see with film that makes me want to shoot it exclusively is Kodak Professional films’ colors, the depth in the image, the way film handles light. Film images always draw me in.

I also have fallen in love with the process of shooting film. For me, the simpler my process is, the freer I am creatively. With film, I am freed from looking at the camera back, from worrying about the camera settings beyond the basic aperture and shutter speeds. That simplicity keeps me in the moment with the people in front of my camera and inspires me creatively.

People sometimes wonder how I shoot film at weddings as if it was a harder process than digital. But I don’t think it really is. Here are my go-to’s for shooting film at weddings.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

For the majority of the wedding, I shoot with mainly my medium format camera – the Contax 645. I also carry a 35mm camera – the Canon 1v with a wide-angle lens, which I use for photojournalistic type shots, movement, and some fun portraits. I also pack 2 back up cameras just in case. You never know at a wedding what will decide to break.

I have a ton of film cameras that I love to experiment with. I love my Rollei sl66 and my toy cameras (Holga and Lomos) and fun and different lenses. But I pick only one “extra” camera to bring with me to a wedding. And I preload that camera with the film it will need and I usually shoot only 1 or 2 rolls through it during the bride and groom portrait time. I have found that in older cameras and lenses, using Kodak Ektar film works really well. The strong colors and contrast from Ektar help work against older lenses loss of contrast.

MY FILM BAG

I use an old shoulder carry camera bag as my film bag. It has three compartments, which I use for the three different speeds of film I will use during the day. In each compartment, I have a zip lock bag of unwrapped 120 rolls of film. On top of each bag is a replacement insert for my camera (Contax 645) loaded with that sort of film. For me, that’s one compartment of Portra 160 and Ektar 100 mixed (my daylight outside films). The second compartment has Portra 800 (my favorite inside or nighttime color film). And the third compartment holds Kodak Tri-x 400 (for nighttime reception shots). There is also an empty Ziploc bag that I use to put in all my shot film. I also put a couple of spare batteries in my film bag.

On the outsides of my bag are two pockets. In one is Kodak Ektar 35mm film, in the other, Kodak BW400CN and Tri-x in 35mm. Those are for my 35mm camera- Canon 1v.

MY ASSISTANT/SECOND SHOOTER

I love to shoot weddings with someone by my side. It makes the day go smoother and I love having someone to chat with and bounce ideas off. My assistant carries my film bag and reloads the spare inserts for me. When I finish a roll of film, I just turn around and open my camera back, he hands me a new insert and I hand him the insert with the finished roll. Then he reloads that for me while I’m shooting. Easy. Peasy. He also shoots here and there as inspiration hits him.

Of course he doesn’t always have to stand right there with me. In slower times of the day, like the getting ready, I might be with the bride and he will be with the guys and I reload the film myself. But in the busiest times of the day, its especially handy to have his help reloading the film.

BRING LIGHT

I shoot film all day and all night. So the reception is shot on all film as well. For nighttime shooting, I like to bring a variety of lighting tools — 2 video lights and 2 flashes. The video lights work great for first dances and cake cutting. I set them up on nearby tables, or one on top of my camera and one held by my assistant while I shoot black and white film. I have flashes for both the Canon and the Contax and I use those also. Flashes work well for dancing shots and candids.

For me film is all about both the look I can achieve in my images and the process itself. I find myself being much more creative and artistic with film in my camera. I love experimenting with things done in camera — double or triple exposures, light leaks, super wide angles or older cameras and lenses. Its really the fun I have with shooting film along with the images I get back that keeps me committed to film.

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Kosuke Okahara is a celebrated documentary photographer best known for his in-depth work on Colombia and Fukushima, Japan. He is the recipient of several awards and grants including the 2010 W. Eugene Smith Fellowship, Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography, World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass, PDN’s annual 30 Photographers, and the Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Award. His photography has been exhibited at museums, galleries and international photo festivals around the world.

Last February, I received an assignment for a kind of job I had never done before. It was from a fashion brand called Comme des Garçons. I haven’t done fashion work so I read the email again. It wasn’t a mistake; Comme des Garçons was asking me to shoot their Paris Fashion week show. They asked me to shoot as I always shoot because the designer, Ms. Rei Kawakubo, wanted to document the day of their collection from the beginning to the end.

It was surprising that a big fashion brand asked me to shoot. I was curious so I said yes. When I asked them how they found me, they said they were looking for a documentary photographer for their show and eventually for a direct mail campaign. Comme des Garçons’s direct mail is widely known for its artistic concepts. They had seen my images and liked what they saw. This was a completely new experience as a photographer and I was excited to give it a try.

Comme des Garçons’s asked me to shoot as I always shoot. So I ran out to get enough Tri-X for the day. My guess was that it would be quite dark but I could push the film.

The directions I had from Ms. Rei Kawakubo were quite simple. She wanted to express intensity but she didn’t want ordinary fashion pictures. Some people would expect backstage access when shooting a fashion show. But another condition from the designer was “absolutely no backstage”. She didn’t want any disruptions with the models. So for me, that wasn’t much of option. It was challenging in a way, but sometimes limitations allow you to push yourself further and to be more instinctive.

As a first timer going inside a fashion show, I didn’t know what to expect. When I arrived I found a large runway that took up most of the space. This was where most of the action would take place. As a documentary photographer, though, I began to see possibilities beyond the runway. I loaded my camera and started shooting.

Once the show started, it was impossible to move – there was a huge crowd and the place was packed. So I focused on everything else; the people coming and going, team members setting up, and the environment itself.

When I shoot, I believe that anything and everything can be a part of the story. Of course sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Regardless, I just keep shooting. That is the most important thing for me when I do stories. It may sound basic but focusing all the time is both difficult and exhausting.

One of the greatest things of this assignment was that they allowed me to take my time in the darkroom. As they said they wanted me to do it my way, I printed all the pictures on fiber-based papers. I developed the many rolls of Tri-X according to my development recipe, then spent 10 days in the darkroom to print the images. These days in the world of photography, things move very fast but sometimes it is good to take time. Shooting film makes me think more. It forces me to look at images over and over while making contact sheets, choosing images, and then printing images. It gives me more time to understand the pictures during the process. I am not sure if this kind of assignment will happen to me again but it was quite interesting for not a fashion photographer.

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“Film allows me to book more and spend less time at my desk!” – Elisa Bricker

Elisa Bricker

Most photographers I know didn’t get into our field because they love spending time in the office. When I talk with other photographers, they share their love of people and stories, of documenting and sharing their work – not their love of editing! I share my love of film because I want more photographers to know how inviting the process is. I want to share how I was able to leave my desk to shoot more, without needing to reinvent my business.

When I started photographing my clients using a digital camera, it was easy to over commit. My workweek was a mix of business tasks and hours spent at my desk culling and editing digital images. I loved the work I was doing, but I needed a better process, and I wanted to spend more time doing the work that really mattered to me – shooting!

Film photography is an invitation to create with your subject. It’s an opportunity for thoughtful and intentional creativity, and it’s a way to streamline your workflow. The move back to film was an obvious one for me. It allowed me to book more work because I was spending less time at my desk. It freed my schedule for more personal projects, and simplified my week – meaning I had more time and energy for my clients and our work together.

To start 2015 we have an exciting opportunity to share our work, our lives and our love of film. We’ll be at Imaging USA, in the Kodak Alaris booth (#726). I’ll be in the booth twice: once on Sunday, February 1 at 2 pm and again on Monday afternoon at 1 pm. I’m looking forward to seeing you there.

If you can’t make it to the Kodak Alaris booth, then Edward and I (my husband and owner of Contax Rental www.contaxrental.com) are teaching a workshop in France.

This workshop is designed specifically for film photographers because we recognize both the allure of film photography and how intimidating it can be to try shooting on film without training. Learning film on your own can be a tedious and frustrating experience. Learning to use film with others is a liberating one.

The last time I was in a dark room was probably 2002, and the last time I shot film wasn’t too long after that. By the time I graduated from photo school I had switched to digital with a lot of conviction. I remember debating with some of my more reluctant classmates about it, and my argument was that I felt I could ultimately provide a better image with digital. It gave you more options, I said. Then around the middle of 2012 I started shooting film again, mostly out of boredom. After nearly a decade of digital, I found the experience of shooting on film to be a revelation.

People ask me why I prefer to shoot film, expecting me to say something romantic about the way film looks, the texture of it. Instead, I completely stay out of that subjective and tired debate of whether it looks better than digital (off the record, I do prefer the way film looks). But what I discovered when I returned to film was that it had more to do with the absence of the LCD screen on the back of the camera than anything else.

Putting any camera up to your face takes you out of the moment, but taking a picture and then looking at the screen on the back of the camera really takes you out of the moment. The disconnect is at its worst when making portraits of people. It’s uncomfortable enough to have your picture taken, but it’s even more uncomfortable to be snapped, and then seemingly judged by the photographer as he’s reviewing the image. The temptation to check the screen is way too strong.

I’ve tried to turn it off. I’ve put gaffers tape over the screen. But these efforts are no better then a New Year’s resolution that I’ll never keep. Invariably, the subjects want to have a look for themselves and unless you’ve just shot a Pulitzer Prize winner, they’re probably going to feel less spectacular about themselves. Often subjects, assuming I’m shooting digital, will point to my camera and ask “can I see?” and I’ll respond, “No, but neither can I.” They then seem to be reinvigorated by the equality between us.

I find that if I’m shooting with digital, I’ll be tempted to over-perfect any one shot. The instant feedback from the LCD allows me to make tiny adjustments, which many times are not imperative. Most of my best work is reactive, and when I start spending too much time on one shot I’ve only succeeded in making myself less open, less creative. Whereas with film, I may take two or three pictures of a scene, then say to myself, “OK, this is getting expensive, time to move on,” and then I change positions drastically, or take the subject to an entirely new location. As a result, by the end of the shoot, I’ve come away with true variations rather then just 75 versions of the same image. As it turned out, I was wrong about what I thought ten years ago; it’s actually the process unique to shooting film that seems to help me make a more creative image. Shooting film is a constricting parameter, and it’s well known that sometimes it’s easier to work when confined.

Of course I still shoot digital for certain jobs, and for some applications, it’s the way to go. I can’t find an underwater housing for my Pentax 67 and I get seriously wet on a lot of my shoots. I can imagine digital is great for shooting tabletop still life with the client in the studio. For me, however, most of my best work comes on location assignments after I’ve had a day or two to get into “the zone.” Without trying to sound all metaphysical about it, shooting film seems to lessen the time it takes to get into the zone. I know I’m there when I’ve stopped thinking about the equipment, even stopped thinking about the composition. I only know I’ve been in the zone after the fact. You can’t be in the zone and recognize it at the same time; if you do, you pull yourself out of it. Digital, which makes so much possible, ironically causes me to be occupied by distracting technical options. Too many options are bad.

It’s counter-intuitive but film makes me care less about getting the right exposure. (It must be said; the dynamic range of film is an amazing and forgiving thing.) Perhaps it’s because I’m preemptively measuring the light more often. Constantly taking meter readings, I have greater faith that my next shot will be properly exposed. In any case, I feel more present and more in tune with my surroundings, and I don’t have to spend much thought on operating the camera. I make do with what’s loaded in the camera, knowing that I can push process the next roll if I have to, and that’s that. Yes, it’s more challenging to shoot film but it’s less distracting then digital. Ironically I find shooting film to be more peaceful, almost meditative, and all I have to think about is where to put the viewfinder’s rectangle.

Michael Turek is a New York-and London-based photographer.

He first fell in love with photography on family trips to England and his high-school photo teacher urged him to pursue the medium. Four years later, he graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a photography degree and moved to Manhattan to assist prominent names. He soon began accepting his own commissions from publications on both sides of the Atlantic.

For Turek, photography is a way of experiencing life; it’s suggestive of a memory, but the immediacy forces him to move past the pictures he has taken to the images he hasn’t yet made. He is the recipient of accolades from American Photography, Communications Arts, and PDN; and he maintains The Turek Atlas, an online travel guide featuring his images.

Michael shoots with a variety of cameras but he is particularly fond of his Pentax 6×7 and KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA 400 and 160 films.

As a mother of four, I marvel at the everyday changes that happen so quickly in childhood. I get to observe the wonder of children experiencing things for the first time. I cheer them on as they learn and achieve. I get to laugh with them as they find joy in the simple things.

Like most parents, I take photographs of important childhood events. But I wanted to do something different. I wanted to look back and remember my children the way they were not only during those happy childhood milestones but also during the day-to-day happenings of life. At the start of 2014, I began a personal project to document my kids throughout the year.

As I contemplated this project, I thought of ways to slow down and really take time to know what was happening in my children’s lives. I thought of my own mother with her camera, carefully composing and changing settings as my brothers and sisters squirmed with the excitement of knowing our photo was being taken. I wanted to re-create that feeling for my children who have grown up in the digital age, where photos are taken at lightning speed, never printed and often deleted as fast as they are taken. I wanted them to feel the importance of knowing that the photos I would take were permanent. I had the tools to make this happen, I just needed to carve out time from our busy days and make this a priority.

I chose film for this project because shooting film causes me to slow down. It forces me to take my time and choose every exposure carefully. I chose KODAK PROFESSIONAL T-MAX 400 film because I have always loved its versatility and beautiful grain. My children seem to notice a difference in the way I shoot with film and the photos I create have more depth and soulfulness.

My project is called “One Roll a Week.” Each week I limit myself to one roll of film and strive to document my children’s lives through timeless portraits that simply focus on their day-to-day growth. Every week, one at a time, I invite my kids into my small studio and take 4 frames of each one. In between frames we talk about their day, friends, or school; no topic is off limits.

WEEK 1

Shot on Kodak Professional T–MAX 400 by Charlene Hardy

January 1st came and everything was set: film, camera and chemicals to develop the film myself. After setting up a stool and studying the light in my small studio, I called my 13-year-old daughter into the room. She eyed my equipment cautiously and asked what was going on. I told her about my project as she plopped down on the stool letting me know that she was not quite convinced this was how she wanted to spend her last moments of winter break. I put the camera up to my eye and studied the scene before me. I was taken aback by how grown up she has become. She sighed impatiently and I snapped the first frame. Lowering the camera, she looked at me in disbelief. I tried my best to explain how I was slowing down; I wanted to spend time with her, documenting her growing up in a meaningful way. Our first conversation of the year started in between those four frames.

WEEK 4

Shot on Kodak Professional T–MAX 400 by Charlene Hardy

After school with my 8-year-old daughter, we talked about the week, her best friend moving away and recess. “The kids at school tell me my hair sticks up. I know it does but I like to think it just looks like I have wings and they help me run faster than all of the boys.”

WEEK 7

Shot on Kodak Professional T–MAX 400 by Charlene Hardy

My 5-year-old son has just completed 100 days of Kindergarten. I am amazed at how fast time has gone by. It really seems like yesterday I was dropping him off for his first day of school. I asked him how he felt and he excitedly replied, “I am 100 days smarter and I only have 80 more days until summer! Then I can go to college.”

WEEK 11

Shot on Kodak Professional T-MAX 400 by Charlene Hardy

I spent two hours with my 11-year-old daughter at a retina specialist, where they numbed her eyes and tried to dilate them. It was an exhausting process- we got bad news about her progressing vision loss. That afternoon, her eyes were causing her pain and she kept closing them to try to ease the burning sensation. I took her home and we ended up in the studio talking. At one point I sighed, my heart heavy and I asked her, “What are we going to do?” Tugging her hair as she thought she replied quietly, “I just want to be able to keep dancing.” This is one of those weeks I will not likely be forgetting soon. Documenting the year is sometimes harder than I ever imagined.

WEEK 15

Shot on Kodak Professional T-MAX 400 by Charlene Hardy

My five year old has an amazing imagination. One day he is a wilderness explorer, the next a gladiator. “Hey Mom, I’m a gladiator, gladiators are NOT glad. They make mad fighting faces like this.”

As of this week I have completed 17 weeks and it’s been such an adventure. I adore sharing my love of film photography with my children in a way that allows us to spend time with each other. It has really helped me to know them better. Some weeks are easy to document, filled with simple childhood pleasures: being chosen as part of the yearbook staff, dancing in a production or finally getting a 100% on a spelling test. But some weeks are tough. Childhood has its share of disappointments and it can be heart wrenching to experience. I try my best to capture a little of what is going on in their lives, the good and the not so good, knowing that together we are learning and growing together from these events.

Charlene Hardy is a portrait photographer specializing in Children and Family portraiture. She lives in Kennewick, Washington with her husband and four children. Charlene enjoys making timeless portraits of children using film and the hands on approach of developing and scanning the film herself. For more information on her work and her “One Roll a Week” project, please visit http://charlenehardyphotography.com

I began shooting pinhole about 10 years ago when a friend convinced me to build a camera out of foam core and an old Polaroid back. My first image was a 15-minute exposure in my living room on Type 55 film…and it wasn’t very good. The camera needed adjustment. I needed adjustment. But I got hooked. By the time I finished that box of film I’d managed to adjust the camera, and my thinking, well enough to produce amazingly sharp images. I felt chills every time a photo worked, like witnessing magic.

Yellow Dress, Expired Portra 100T

I love pinhole because it requires long exposures, even on bright days, which means movement disappears. I love pinhole because there is infinite depth of field so everything is in focus. I love pinhole because when the focal length is short enough you get vignette and stretchy goodness at the edges. I love pinhole because it challenges me.[/caption]

Apollo Lands, Portra 160

Most professional photographers shoot pinhole at least once, usually in some high school or college class, a lesson in the most basic form of photography using the most basic form of camera. Honestly, cameras don’t get any simpler than pinhole. No battery, no viewfinder, no glass, no focus, no auto anything, just a box with a tiny hole and some film.

Dawn Through a Dirty Window On a Red Eye Train, Expired Portra 160

Behind this simplicity, though, is a learning curve that can be frustrating … maddening, really, when you consider variables different films throw into the mix, like reciprocity failure and long exposure color shift (Portra has a beautiful blue shift). That learning curve is why pinholers are some of the most serious and knowledgeable photographers I’ve met. Pinhole certainly improved my photographic skills.

Pinholing Yosemite, Portra 400VC

My go-to camera is a 6×9 medium format Zero Image, made by Zernike Au in Hong Kong. It’s a teak (sustainably farmed) and brass beauty with an aperture of f/235 and considered by many the Leica of pinhole cameras. He also makes 4×5 and 35mm versions. Other cameras I shoot: Nikkormat FTN 35mm with a pinhole body cap I made; a Holga 120 WPC, which shoots 6×12 on medium format film; a homemade camera that shoots Impossible Project instant film; Zeiss Ikon Nettar 518 converted to pinhole; several others I’ve built.

Traffic Circle, Portra 400

A common theme among my cameras is that they all shoot film…mostly 120. I find that film works better for pinhole, although I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s just personal preference (although I’ve found most of my peers agree). I created a body cap pinhole for my Nikon DSLR and found the images were…well…weak is the best description.

David, Portra 160

I find 120 format Portra 160 gives the most reliable results, has a good contrast, and as I mentioned before, there’s a nice blue shift in long exposures. Also, reciprocity failure (the need to add more time to an exposure the longer you exposure the film) isn’t as steep with Portra as it is with most films. And it scans really well.

Pitted Confusion, Portra 160

Every year, on the last Sunday of April, there is an international event to celebrate pinhole: Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. The idea is that photographers from around the world shoot pinholes on a single day and submit them to the group website (http://www.pinholeday.org/). This year’s event is April 27. To help new pinhole photographers get started, Pinhole Day-related workshops are offered in numerous cities across the globe. Most cover the process of building a pinhole camera and creating your first images. It’s a great place to start.

7-Hour Lunargraph, Portra 160

There are numerous pinhole resources. The definitive pinhole book is Eric Renner’s Pinhole Photography. Renner, considered a pioneer of modern pinhole photography, knows how to break the subject into easy-to-digest chunks, although it can get a bit technical for folks who don’t know photography well.

Two less technical books I’ve read that cover the subject well are Pinhole Cameras: A DIY Guide, by Chris Keeney and The Pinhole Camera: A Practical How-To Book for Making Pinhole Cameras and Images, by Brian Krummel.

Check out F295.org, a forum and blog site dedicated to “Historic, Alternative and Digital Techniques.” It has tens of thousands of posts related to lensless photography, with a dedicated core group of users who welcome and assist people just starting out in pinhole. It’s where my pinhole network began.

If you want to build pinhole cameras then Pinhole.cz and MrPinhole.com provide online calculators for proper camera and pinhole sizes. And don’t forget Kodak’s own, “How to Make and Use a Pinhole Camera.” There are plenty of other resources out there – just search for “pinhole photography” and see what you find.

If that isn’t enough, I’m lucky enough to be part of the recently started “Pinhole Podcast,” on the pdexposures network — along with Jana Obscura, Shelly Sometimes, Alex Yates, and Jeff Soderquist — where we discuss all things pinhole. Recent episodes covered the differences between paper, film, and digital (humorous and engaging, I swear), and interviews with world-renowned pinholers visiting Berlin for the OBSCURA pinhole exhibit.

Finally, you can find me at SquarePegPinhole.com. It’s where I post most of my work, write about pinhole photography and share my experiences. I’m always happy to answer questions about pinhole.

Creating a photograph is exhilarating. There is power in the creative arts, and the ability to compose, manipulate, and work with a subject is a cultivated skill, one that continually gives me joy and makes me happy to be a photographer.

I remember learning to shoot film from my grandfather and father using a hand-me-down 35mm film camera. After shooting the rolls I had purchased at a nearby store, and impatiently waiting for them to be developed by a local lab, I would sit down for one on one critique with each of them. We would talk about lighting, composition, metering and so on. Those hours spent in mentoring were invaluable to me, and fueled my desire to learn more and do better.

Shot on KODAK PORTRA 400

When I began shooting professionally, I purchased a digital camera. I soon realized that I was spending endless hours at my desk editing my digital images and trying to make them look like film. But why make them look like film when it’s better to use film itself!

Shot on KODAK PORTRA 400

In this digital age, I’m flattered when others see and appreciate what I do with film. I see in both previous and current generations – people valuing the artistic process and the medium I use to create images for them.

Shot on KODAK PORTRA 400

While I am a hybrid shooter (using both digital and film), my first instinct is to choose film, whether I’m shooting personal work or professionally. I absolutely love photographing my subjects using film. I love the process of using it – of thinking more deliberately, and taking time to create. Film helps me to slow down and really see the world around me.

Shot on KODAK PORTRA 400

That’s where having my grandfather and father as mentors made all the difference. Learning film on your own can be a daunting experience.

Because I love film – especially KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA 400 – I want others to fall in love with it as well. My husband Edward (the owner of Contax Rental) and I created a film workshop in partnership with Belle Lumiere Magazine because we recognized the draw that film creates and how intimidating it can be to try shooting film without training.

We want to give photographers who are new to film an outlet to experience, ask questions and master the basics. We’ve set out to encourage photographers to get excited about film, learn how to choose the best equipment – film, camera, light meter and lab – and then guide them to use these tools of the trade to their benefit.

Holding a camera in our hands is all about learning and seeing. If we can open people up to seeing that larger world, we might just empower a whole new generation of film mentors.

Elisa Bricker is a film-based wedding and portrait photographer who lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her work has been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, Once Wed, Southern Weddings Magazine, Southern Living Weddings Magazine, Weddings Unveiled Magazine, The Knot, Style Me Pretty, & More.

When Elisa is not photographing weddings, she is traveling and photographing her surroundings for pleasure, spending time with her husband Edward, their son, and their little pup who loves to curl up at her feet while she reads.